


en garde

by sad_goomy



Series: Lonashipping Week 2019 [6]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Banter, F/M, Lonashipping, Lonashipping Week, Post-Canon, Prompt Fic, Shakespeare Quotations, Swordfighting, Unresolved Sexual Tension, all over the place with reckless abandon, as always I treat the SuMo kids as teens, in which goomy writes 3k of swordfighting/fencing without knowing a single thing about it, mahinashipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 01:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20001520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sad_goomy/pseuds/sad_goomy
Summary: Moon decides to put Gladion’s old fencing equipment to use, and he decides that not everything from his past has to haunt him.They also trade Shakespearean insults and end up in a compromising position, but that’s neither here nor there.





	en garde

**Author's Note:**

> here's the glossary of fencing terms I used (probably not quite correctly) for those who also don't know a thing about swords: https://sportsaspire.com/sword-fighting-techniques-styles-moves

"What’s with the foils?” 

Gladion looks up, seeing that Moon’s paused in petting Silvally in his office, and her eyes have gone to the old fencing equipment by the wall. He puts down his pen, rubbing at his temple as he remembers why that’s here and the headache it’s been causing him. “I’ve been going through old boxes while Lillie is away.” 

It’s been about three months since his sister went to Kanto with their mother, and they’ve only recently started seeing some improvements in Lusamine’s health. That means the two will be home soon, and considering that Gladion isn’t even sure if he forgives his mother, the last thing he wants to do is be living in the same house as her on an island. He’s found a place on Akala, and now he’s going through his things still at Aether, figuring out what he’ll need to move and what he’ll need to get rid of. 

The fencing equipment has been trickier than others. 

Silvally, realizing he won’t be receiving any more attention from Moon, pads off to his bed in the corner of the office. Moon heads toward the equipment, picking up an épée and weighing it in her hands with a hum. “Heavier than I thought.” 

“Because it’s not a foil.” By this point, Gladion’s abandoned his paperwork, instead watching her with the ghost of a smile. “It’s an épée.” 

“And the question of why you have them still stands.” She tosses it from hand to hand, marveling at how the blade sails cleanly through the air. 

He sighs, not sure how much of the memory he wants to dredge up. “I used to fence, but it’s been years. I should just get rid of it.” 

She pauses in her inspection of the dueling sword, tilting her head as she looks at him and deciphers all the traces of melancholy. “Did you enjoy it?” 

“At some point.” 

Some point just before his father disappeared, before his mother revealed her wicked side. One of the first signs was her constant pushing of him, her constant demands of perfection when it came to every sort of battle. She was harsh in her critiques, was disappointed in every fencing tournament that didn’t yield a gold trophy, and it all became too much. 

He’s not sure whether she made him quit or he gave it up himself, but at some point, he decided the only battles he’s capable of having are with Pokémon. 

And then even those were off the table with her breathing down his neck. 

“I bet I could beat you.” 

Moon’s voice brings him back to his office. He blinks, seeing that she’s picked up another épée, holding it out to him in a challenge. Silvally watches with interest from his corner, sitting up. 

It’s an odd thought to have about a friend, but Gladion thinks she looks good holding swords. He doesn’t bother to try and dissect it further – he's had enough of his thoughts for now – and instead smirks. “Do you even know how to fence?” 

She shrugs. “No but I just read _Twelfth Night,_ so I think I have a pretty good shot of winning.” 

He chuckles as he stands, walking around his desk. Wordlessly, he accepts the épée from her, weighing it in his hands and feeling echoes of muscle memory. He very nearly mimes a riposte, just to see if the technique is still there in his bones, but stops himself short. When he can feel silver eyes burning into him, he looks up with a lopsided smile. “Sword-fighting is different.” 

Moon chews her cheek, considering him as she twirls her blade. “Which version doesn’t have any rules?” 

“None of them.” The idea of anything not having rules, especially something that he has had the rules drilled into him repeatedly, is baffling. He can nearly hear his mother’s voice reminding him, and so he blocks it out with his own research, with the things he always found interesting as he looks down at his dueling sword and explains, “And épée has different rules than foils or sabres, namely that a touch can be landed anywhere on the body and that there is no right-of-way with attacks -” 

A rubber tip of an épée lands on his chest. 

He looks up into Moon’s grinning face as she freezes in her lunge. “A hit,” she teases, stepping back and giving her sword a theatrical swish, “A very palpable hit.” 

“You said _Twelfth Night_ , not _Hamlet.”_ What little annoyance he musters in his voice is a very thin façade that’s immediately cracked by his inability to hide his smile. 

She winks. “I also said I’m not playing by any rules.” 

“Everything has rules, structure.” 

And now he does hear his mother’s voice, her dignified and disgruntled hum before she lays into him, picks apart his form as he looks up at her. Everything was rules and structures after his father left, everything was monitored and measured and it was rigged so that he couldn’t keep up. He kept trying to for so long, and she would hold it over his head; just a win at a fencing tournament, and then she’ll smile, or wear the clothing she picks out without complaint, and then she’ll see him, really see him. 

Without realizing, his mother’s voice molds into his own in his head, and he’s asking himself the very things he hated hearing as a child. 

_Why can’t you remember?_

_Have you been practicing at all?_

_Are you trying to disappoint me?_

His face must reveal his downward spiral, because Moon clears her throat. Her eyes are confused, but soft all the same, and she holds his gaze as she tells him slowly, simply, “I think all the best things happen when you break the rules.” 

But doubt has long crept in and he raises a brow. “Name one.” 

“Meeting you.” 

It comes out so quick and so earnest that they’re both blushing, the words sinking into their skin with a pleasant warmth. Moon clears her throat quickly, explaining, “Never would have happened if you didn’t run off and join a criminal organization.” 

As the moment settles over him, he nearly feels like laughing; it’s funny to think how far they’ve come from him challenging her to a battle to...her challenging him to a battle. 

Maybe the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

Either way, he smiles and lets himself give in to her charm (like he finds himself doing more often than not these days). “Well then,” he mumbles, and his body eases into the starting position, knees bent and left arm arced up behind him as he holds up his épée. “En garde.” 

She grins, stepping back and mirroring his position, raising her chin in defiance. “Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?” 

He knows the line but has to wrack his mind for the response. “I do bite my thumb.” 

At that, Moon goes in for a thrust, which he quickly parries, though her accuracy throws him until he remembers that she grew up taking archery lessons. She has a sharp eye, and what he’s lost in the years of not practicing she makes up for with passion. He gets some space between them, stepping away from his desk, and then goes in for a beat attack to disrupt her next thrust. 

She matches him strike for strike, the sound of metal against metal filling the air as she steps ever closer to him, until they’re straining against each other to keep the other’s épée in place. 

Moon smirks, trying to ignore that she can feel Gladion’s breath on her lips. “Do you quarrel, sir?” 

“You know I haven’t read it,” he groans. There hasn’t exactly been much time for him to brush up on his Shakespeare since taking over Aether, and he’s never really been interested in _Romeo and Juliet_. It always seemed a little too hopelessly romantic for his taste. 

“Then improvise.” She steps back just enough to pull off a haphazard circle parry and reset them. 

Gladion very nearly opens his mouth to comment on her technique, and realizes he’s been keeping careful inventory of their every move. His thrusts are sloppy, his parries have been ill-timed, and his stance is screaming amateur. 

But looking at the brilliant smile that she’s serving him, watching as she twirls the épée in her hands with the confidence of someone who has no idea what she’s doing, unlocks something in him. 

After all, she’s not playing by any rules. 

Who’s to say he can’t silence the voice in his head and try his hand at letting some of that structure fall to the wayside? 

He fakes a thrust, and then she goes for his legs in her counter-attack; only for him to jump and avoid the sweep, and land the rubber tip of his sword on her shoulder while he lands. Her eyes are wide, and then she’s chuckling, the fire of a challenge stoked in both of them now. Even Silvally senses the rising stakes, as he sits up in the corner and watches intently. 

They circle each other, waiting for the other to strike first. In an attempt to distract him, she goes back to their conversation, keeping her tone light while her eyes are sharp and scanning for an opening. “But you really should read it – you'd like Tybalt.” 

Gladion raises a brow. “Is that a compliment?” 

“Bit of a back-handed one.” 

And while he takes a moment to scoff and feel offended, she lunges, aiming for his back only for him to half-turn and catch her blade against his. She backs him into a corner as they narrowly avoid each other’s large swings. Gladion’s nearly ready to accept defeat, barely dodging another thrust aimed at his shoulder, until his eyes catch a blur of movement behind Moon. 

Because Silvally has decided he wants to be a part of the battle, too, which in this case means bounding up behind Moon and giving the girl’s head a lick. 

She’s caught off guard for just a second, mouth falling open in a question and sword faltering, and it’s just the opportunity that Gladion needs to land a hit on her chest. She frowns, realizing what’s happened as she turns to look at Silvally and reach a hand out towards the creature. 

“Et tu, Silvally?” The Pokémon tilts his head, watching along with his owner as the Champion drops her sword and collapses to the ground, mumbling in a shaky, final breath, “Then fall, Moon.” 

Confused but seemingly pleased with his contribution, Silvally heads back to his spot in the corner, leaving Gladion to shake his head with a chuckle. “You’re not tyrannical enough to be Julius Ceasar.” He keeps his sword at his side and uses his other hand to reach out in an offer to help her up. She takes it. 

And then grabs her épée and taps it against his leg. 

He’s downright offended, mouth wide open as she looks up at him from the floor with a smirk. “But I’m cunning enough for Cassius.” 

As she picks herself off the floor, he picks up his jaw, setting it square as the last voice holding him back shuts up. 

Two can play at this game. 

Moon’s barely gotten into her defensive stance before Gladion is lunging, watching with a grin as she struggles to parry with wide eyes. He’s circling her a bit like a Sharpedo, always aiming for her back and forcing her to constantly spin. 

Just when she’s fallen into the rhythm, he unleashes a flurry of thrusts, forcing her to walk backwards until they’re by his desk once more. Without a care for stains or decorum he hops onto one of the armchairs opposite his desk, a foot on the armrest as he takes full advantage of the higher ground. 

If he stops to think about it, he might feel a little ridiculous – his stance is a little too close to the covers of Lillie’s guilty pleasure fantasy romance novels. He’s thumbed through a few of the paperbacks after finding them stashed in the attic, mostly for a laugh, and he knows that at this point, all he’s missing is a frilly shirt and leather pants. If anyone were to walk in on him right now, he’d never live the embarrassment down. 

But it’s hard to focus on his self-consciousness when Moon’s laughing, dodging the blows he aims at her head as she cackles, “I’ve unleashed Titus Andronicus!” 

He pauses his onslaught, raising a brow as his lips settle into a smirk (and isn’t that how the fantasy novel heroes always regard their rivals?). “Another backhanded compliment?” 

“No.” She disengages, stepping back and twirling the épée with a wolfish smile and impish glint in her eyes. “That one’s just pure insulting.” 

“I wonder you would still be talking.” He hops down from the armchair, sauntering after her as they travel to the middle of the room. “Nobody marks you.” 

They begin circling each other once more, and he’s feeling more than smug after his latest show of swordsmanship and limited knowledge of Shakespeare. She may have read more plays than him, but at least he has a few of the insults stored away. He just never imagined he’d actually need them, or that he’d be saying them with a sword in his hand and a smile on his face. 

Seriously, hasn’t he read this exact scene while skimming through one of those books? 

Moon feints an attack, and Gladion falls for the bait, lunging and giving her an opportunity to duck and aim for his leg; he just barely dodges, bringing his leg back before going for a riposte. She brings up her blade and easily parries with a smirk, teasing, “Such antics do not amount to a man.” 

“You are not worth another word, else I’d call you knave,” he counters, and begins a round of beat attacks in an incomprehensible rhythm that takes all her concentration to deflect. 

Which means she’s ill-prepared for his sweeping circle parry that knocks her blade right out of her hand, sending it sailing across the room and clattering to the floor. He goes in for his final strike, aiming right at her chest, but she ducks to the floor and kicks his legs out from under him. His épée goes flying in the other direction as he struggles to balance, but ultimately, he hits the ground with a thud, and he has half a mind to tell her that _hurt_ , but frankly he can’t get the sentence out over his astonished laugh. 

That, and he’s a little (a lot) distracted by the feeling of her straddling him and pinning his hands to the ground. 

They’re both panting, a light sheen of sweat on their faces as they catch their breaths. Their faces are close enough that they can feel each other’s hot breath, and Moon wills her eyes to remain glued to his instead of to how his throat bobs when he swallows hard. 

“Seems you’re a little rusty.” It’s little more than a whisper, but even that feels too loud. She thinks she should probably get up, that it’s a little weird for rivals to be in this position, that feeling his racing pulse under her palms is doing strange things to her. 

He lets out a weak chuckle that dies in his throat, and though he tries for a casual, playful tone, his voice is too ragged. “You’re lucky I took it easy on you.” 

Something dangerous flickers in her eyes, and she leans down a hair closer. 

“You don’t have to be gentle with me, _Gladion_.” 

Did she mean for her voice to dip so low on his name? How can she make it all her own, take something so mundane from him and twist it into something that sounds nearly holy yet defiled? 

Arceus, now he’s _really_ becoming one of those stupid paperbacks. 

She really should get up now; she’s more than proven her point and can chalk this up as a win. However, they remain in place, panting and bending to each other. There’s no structure he can hide behind here, and there aren’t exactly rules as to what happens when your opponent has you pinned and you don’t particularly mind. 

Her grip softens, and he tilts his chin up. 

She really should get up now. 

But instead she leans down until- 

There’s a light knock at his office door and they jump up and apart from each other just as Wicke steps in, looking down at her clipboard as she mumbles, “I have this morning’s minutes.” 

Wicke looks up, immediately confused by the épée by her foot, Silvally’s excited state in the corner, and the absolutely disheveled appearance of the Aether President and Alola Champion. They’re both avoiding her eyes, Moon focusing on adjusting the hem of her shirt, and Gladion rubbing one of his wrists with his thumb (because he can feel her touch like a brand and he can’t focus on anything else). 

“...am I interrupting something?” 

“ _No.”_

It comes out far too quickly from both of them to be anything but suspicious. But Wicke only smiles to herself, walking towards Gladion and handing off her notes from today’s morning meeting. She turns to walk back out, and spots another out of place épée, along with the rest of the fencing equipment still stacked haphazardly against the wall. She nods towards it as she asks, “Would you like me to see if we can donate this?” 

“Actually,” Gladion breathes, finally looking up, only to immediately catch Moon’s gaze. He swallows again, willing his voice to be even as he turns to Wicke with a smile tugging at his lips. “I’m thinking I might pick it up again.” 

Wicke’s lips part in surprise before curling into a smile, nodding once more and taking her leave, shutting the office door quietly behind her. Gladion watches, but he can feel Moon’s eyes on him, can feel the air around her vibrate with excitement and possibility. She picks up the dueling sword closest to her, twirling it in her hands. 

“Why the change of heart?” 

He looks over at her, and she takes the few steps needed to put them at just a foot apart. He places the paper in his hand on his desk before crossing his arms. “Can’t let my rival get ahead of me.” 

And she takes another half-step and points the blade towards his chin, her voice back to that velvet whisper despite herself. “Keep your enemies close, and all that?” 

Her hand brushes against his leg and he has to bite his cheek to keep from reacting. She’s looking right at his lips. 

“Something like that.” 

Maybe he should brush up on his Shakespeare for the next time. 

After he reads one of Lillie’s fantasy novels – for research purposes only, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> have something silly and self-indulgent because that's what these kids deserve and you can take the headcanon that Gladion would know how to fence out of my cold, dead hands


End file.
